Heritage
A house, in its own words
Elegantes was founded in 2012 by Dagmar Smit, who fulfilled a long-held ambition by launching her own haute couture perfume house that year. Her husband and co-founder Thomas Smit shares the creative direction of the London-based project. The name itself, drawn from the French word for "elegant," signals the house's intent to reconnect with classical European perfumery traditions rather than reinvent them. The founding year places Elegantes among a small wave of independent niche houses established in the early 2010s, a period that saw renewed collector interest in traditional extrait de parfum formats. The house's debut collection arrived in 2017, with a first wave that included Oud Exquisite, Oud Noblesse, Amber Incense, Amber Wood, Royal Vetiver, Chesterfield Club, Elegantes Heart, and Ultimate Musk. A second wave followed in 2018 with Cashmere and Rose Musk, completing the initial lineup. The compressed release schedule suggests a deliberate effort to build a cohesive signature library rather than a sprawling catalog. The guiding principle behind Elegantes is to return perfume to its historic beginnings and traditions, presenting fragrance as a sensory experience rooted in centuries-old craft. Dagmar Smit has spoken about this approach in terms of recreating the kind of personal, almost intimate relationship that earlier generations had with scent, when perfume was treated as an art form rather than a mass-market product. The house's portfolio reflects a clear preference for ingredient categories that have anchored fine perfumery for generations: oud, amber, vetiver, musk, and rose. This is not accidental. By concentrating on these classical pillars, Elegantes positions itself against the trend-driven cycles of mainstream launches. The intention appears to be permanence over novelty, with each composition designed to function as a signature rather than a seasonal release. The "haute couture" framing the founders use is deliberate, borrowing the vocabulary of bespoke dressmaking to describe a perfume house that treats scent as a crafted object rather than a disposable commodity.